Existing Home Sales Decline 3.3% in April
Source: The Wall Street Journal.
By Kate Davidson And Jeffrey Sparshott
May 21, 2015 10:06 a.m. ET
WASHINGTONSales of previously owned homes fell in April after surging the previous month, highlighting the fits and starts that have been a hallmark of the housing recovery.
Existing-home sales declined 3.3% last month from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Sales for March were revised up to 5.21 million from an initially reported 5.19 million.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected April sales would increase to a pace of 5.24 million.
Sales in April were up 6.1% from the same month a year earlier.
Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/existing-home-sales-decline-3-3-in-april-1432217164
ETA, at 10:34 a.m., in light of yeoman6987's post:
Housing Starts in U.S. Surge to Seven-Year High as Weather Warms
Source: Bloomberg
by Sho Chandra
8:30 AM EDT
May 19, 2015
New residential construction in the U.S. surged in April to the highest level in more than seven years, indicating the industry has moved beyond a weather-related soft patch to regain strength.
Housing starts jumped 20.2 percent to a 1.14 million annualized rate, the most since November 2007, from a 944,000 pace in March, a Commerce Department report showed Tuesday in Washington. The median forecast of 83 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 1.02 million. More permits, a proxy for future construction, were issued than at any time since June 2008.